Thousands of schools across the nation are celebrating Scholastic Journalism Week. The yearly focus is sponsored by the Journalism Education Association (JEA) and gives students opportunity to focus on First Amendment rights and a chance to share the freedoms and encourage civic responsibility.
This year Scholastic Journalism Week is Feb. 16-22. The event is meant to promote awareness for the efforts of high school publication students across the country. This year the JEA has decided on ‘Share the Love’ as their logo to encourage people to check out publications.
National Scholastic Journalism Week was created for the support of the
Feather senior editor Viviana Hinojosa is hopes campus students add to their knowlege about their freedoms, eventually expressing themselves in community.
“While we all take U.S. history in eighth grade and learn the constitution and the Amendments, we too often take them for granted,” Hinojosa said. “This week we just want to share our vision for the school and treat this week more than just an academic exercise.”
To get started, readers might check out First Amendments Schools for a fun challenge and take the First Amendment 101 Challenge. This interactive quiz encourages students and educators to see how much they know about the First Amendment.
The First Amendment lays the foundations of the rights and responsibilities that allows Americans to unite for the common good in schools and communities.
For instance, The Feather is a web-based paper that focuses on daily news, but is also subjected to opinions pieces. The Feather is similar to a First Amendment Schools in that students are encouraged to share their opinions and can write about their own outlook on any subjects without fear of censorship.
In order to celebrate or promote this Scholastic Journalism Week, Feather staffers have spread flyers around the school, publicize the week through social media and will host a press conference, Feb. 19, in the middle of the main school hallway. This year in honor of promoting journalism week, The Feather staff has also created a hashtag for Twitter: #featherweek as well as #SJW2014.
To ensure that the school is staying up to date with journalism week, The Feather is putting on a friendly competition. Any campus student whoever tweets and includes #featherweek the most this week, will win two free movie tickets.
Journalism staff adviser Greg Stobbe believes Scholastic Journalism Week helps promote First Amendment freedoms and encourages students to become active in their education.
(PODCAST) Scholastic Journalism Week: Feb. 21, 2014–
“While the students learn about First Amendment rights during their education experience, it is my hope that the emphasis on Scholastic Journalism Week provides a little real life insight into the importance of students investing in their five First Amendment freedoms,” Stobbe said. “Just learning about something is not enough. We must be responsible with that information and put the principles into action and promote our rights to meet, speak and petition to better our community.”
Hinojosa also does not take this week lightly and will be one of the spokespersons during Wednesday’s press conference.
“I’m really excited about this week,” Hinojosa said. “This is such a great way for publication students to celebrate the work they do as well as the rights they are given. The entire staff is on board for this week and I’m excited to see the work the writers, photographers and other staff members produce in honor of Scholastic Journalism Week. This is just one example on how we can dialogue with each other.”
This author can be reached via Twitter: @kaitie_king. Follow The Feather via Twitter: @thefeather.
For more information about the tweeting contest, read the Feb. 14 article Feather hosts school-wide Twitter contest, Feb. 17-21.
For more news, read the Feb. 12 BRIEF: CJSF provides Candy Grams on campus.
